You are here

Juice-balance. Understanding plants.

If you want to be a successful gardener, you must know the term 'juice balance'. Because gardening is also applied plant physics. This principle is already half the win for a green thumb.

Medien

Gardening is also a little bit of clairvoyance. But this has nothing to do with magic, but is the result of the understanding how a plant works. Therefore, it is essential to know the concept of the juice-balance! The proof for the principle provides the photo. One can see that the top drive is the strongest, the second a little bit less, and underneeth, nearly nothing happens any more. Why is this the case, and why is this knowledge absolutely essential for a good gardener?

In Central Europe we have it always to do with plants that exist out of a a root, a stem and at the top out of foliage. One may notice that the root is the heart of the plant. It supplies the above-ground part with water and nutrients from the soil, while the upper half is using sunlight to make these ingredients usable for the plant. This means growth ... and growth means to compete with other plants. However, these processes are based on physical principles of evaporation, osmosis and capillary action.

For the plant itself this means, that where the evaporation is the greatest (i.e. at the top, where also the most light is collected), also the most of the water is evaporated. Because of the lack of pure water, this has the rusult that the salt concentration is increased in the cells of the leaves. And this is automatically compensated without any intervention of the plant. It is, as already stated, the physically unavoidable principle of osmosis, that the absorbed water is drawn upwards from the roots. In addition, this effect is supported by the capillaries. Micro-fine veins in the trunk and stem draw fluids from itself into the heighth. This can be easily understood with a piece of toilet paper, that is only dipped with an edge into water. After some seconds, the moisture has drawn itself upwards. Moreover, there is also the air pressure that is slightly lower in the heighth, than below. All of these principles take place in a plant and it reacts accordingly.

With this knowledge another phenomenon gets explainable, that sounds pretty stupid at first glance. If you don't cut the branches of a tree, a shrub or a bush to approximately the same height, it's the branch at the top, which is best provided with everything. Therefore, several or single branches will grow much faster, compared to the rest of the plant. In the worst case it will form some kind of a tentacle and might break. Because such antennas get too heavy, grow too fast and are not stable and are not protected by neighbour branches. But what is already sure; the plant gets asymmetrical and unaesthetic. Why are we telling this is quickly told.

Because you now know how to cut any plant !The most important is the horizontal shape. But now you also know the principle how to promote week shoots. Namely, by cutting down the strong shoots deeper than this special branch!
Of course, it can also occure that plants drive from the bottom, first. But if they are once leafy, the top is in full light and shades the other branches. The principle is always the same, named "juice-balance". This term is essential to understand all plants!